All Night

According to some literary theorists, there are only 16 master archetypes from which to draw fictional characters. All Night, a new feature-length film by local writer/director (and ex-Boise Weekly intern) Jacob Lyman, is primarily peopled with a 17th: the screw-up. Or, more generously, the character-emergent. As the film's gypsy wise-woman (Virgil Doyle) intones, "These young people, fresh young souls ... they don't know much." The events that take place one wild night form such youngsters' characters.

The film follows 11 20-somethings in a small city (presumably Boise) who band-up, hook-up and break-up. There's Marty (Marc McKevitt Ewins), the wannabe rocker who is trying to pursue Julie (Annie Bulow) while avoiding her volatile ex, Vern (producer John Kyle Sutton). Prepping for a Reno, Nev., road trip are Ira (Lyman), Danni (Shea Hall), Jared (Rich Kilfoyle) and Kortney (Jennifer Boudreau), two couples who come across a series of kidnappers, strippers, lotharios and losers.

Filmed during a two-year period, All Night is not a typical Point A-to-Point B picture. The meandering storyline mirrors a multitude of late-night encounters and oddities.

"All Night actually came from us wanting to make a movie that really shows off the lifestyle in Boise, growing up here, being a young person in Boise," Lyman told BW. "The reason [these characters] fit all of those different archetypes is that almost all of them are based off real people that we know or have met before."

With a spritely pace, cheeky camera-work and an upbeat soundtrack (featuring tunes from locals Eleven, the Mosquitones and House of Hoi Polloi), All Night displays the exuberance found in DIY filmmaking. Almost completely funded by the filmmakers, it's one of the latest Treasure Valley productions to receive a last-minute jolt in the arm from the community-sourced funding website Kickstarter. The success of All Night's recent campaign ensured the funding necessary for this weekend's premiere at the Egyptian Theatre and submission to several international film festivals.

"It was a great way to find out how much support the project has from people you know and how much merit the project has from people who aren't familiar with it," said Lyman. "We hit our necessary limit in five days and we had a lot more support than we realized."

Part love story, part puckish buddy comedy, All Night is a heartfelt tribute to the strange and unpredictable affairs of those who dwell between dusk and dawn.